The next morning, dawn had barely begun to break.
Lu Changfeng slipped quietly out of bed and glanced back. Luo Qingge was wrapped in the quilt, sleeping soundly, her long hair spread across the pillow and a stretch of fair shoulder exposed.
He smiled, tucked the quilt around her, dressed, and pushed the door open.
In the courtyard, Snow Robe was crouched on the stone table, a pile of fruit pits in front of it and its cheeks bulging. Clearly, it had been eating all morning.
The moment it saw him, it fluttered over, still holding half a grape in its beak.
"Master! You finally came out!" it called indistinctly. "I've been waiting for you forever! I'm so bored I almost want to go back and bully Mo Li!"
Lu Changfeng tapped its head. "Don't you have fruit to eat?"
Snow Robe swallowed the grape in a few gulps and declared with perfect confidence, "Fruit is fruit, and Master is Master! They're different!"
Lu Changfeng could not be bothered to argue with it. He looked up at the sky.
Today was the fifteenth day of the eighth month.
It was the Mid-Autumn Festival. Chang'an City was surely already decked out with lanterns and festive decorations.
The Princess's Residence should be preparing for its family banquet, too.
He glanced back at the bamboo house. Luo Qingge was still asleep.
He did not wake her. Instead, he took a Jade Pendant from his sleeve and gently placed it on the windowsill. It was a piece of warm jade he had fished out of the Sword Pool during his time at the Shu Mountain Sword Sect, engraved with a tiny "Luo." He had meant to give it to her the next time they met, but now was just as good.
Then he wrote